Your Creative Partner

A Chicago web and graphic design company

Category: branding

I have been working on a really interesting project over the last few weeks, the branding and marketing of a portable solar generator.

The project involved coming up with a name for their product, developing a brand image and a website.

Product Naming

Understanding the target audience and the unique attributes of the product were key parameters during the research of the name.

Small portable generator

Solar Powered

Water resistant box

Replaceable Batteries

Silent power

Rugged military style box

It was also important that a suitable domain name was available…no easy feat in this day and age where so many domain names are purchased and squat on. Product naming is fascinating and after a considerable groundwork I presented a list of possibilities to the client.

The one they selected was HELIOPACK Solar Generator. Helio originates from the Greek word for the sun – Helios, and pack has connotations of something that is portable and is outdoorsy. I think it fits the product perfectly!

Logo Design

The outdoorsy rugged look was also conveyed with the logo. A strong font was selected for the word HELIOPACK and a “power up” symbol incorporated with in it. The color choices reflect clean energy.

Decal Design

Website

The website was kept simple and bold and there are future plans to add e-commerce. Check it out at HELIOPACKgenerator.com

Celebrating 20 years in business is quite an achievement and this summer Lincolnshire Academy of Dance will be celebrating their 20th Anniversary season. They wanted a new logo with a little pizazz to mark the occasion. Here is what I created for them!
Despite the complexity of the glitter the logo was created as a vector which means it can be scaled up and down without any loss of detail and clarity.

Our previous brand image has served us well but we have been wanting to shake things up and redesign it for over a year now. Finding time has been difficult but we have finally rolled out a new brand image for The Chicago Web Designer, Indigo Image.

Lets start at the beginning with the first thing we tackled … an update of our logo.

Logo Redesign

We have dropped our rectangular icon replacing it with a circle but the “pathway” shape remains the same, the color indigo is now complimented with a fresh blue. We also updated the typeface to a less boxy font. While the logo is not a million miles away from where we started it is definitely fresher. The circular icon is nicely compatible with the size and shape restrictions for many social media profile icons ( see what we mean by checking out our Google + page)

Website Re-design

One of the main drivers behind the redesign of our website is the fact there has been a huge surge in traffic from mobile devices such as tablets and smart phones. The growth is so massive it is actually predicted web traffic from these devices is set to pass traffic from desktop computers this summer. While we had coded our previous design to react responsively ( see this blog post), time constraints meant that we didn’t redesign …just recoded. It was a good stop gap but needed fixing!

Both the design and the code has now been optimized for viewing on any device.

The re design gave us the opportunity for some content re-organization. The main area we reworked was the portfolio section. It is now split into four categories

If you are a small business owner are you getting as much bang for your buck from your brand image elements as you would like?

Confused by what your brand image elements actually are?

Think logo, color palette, type faces and imagery. If your marketing materials are using a hodge-podge of colors and the look and feel of any printed materials don’t match the look and feel of your website, you are missing out on the chance of building that all important factor of “recognition” which is such a big part of branding.

Not quite sure if you are achieving this? Pull up your website, dig out your brochure, business card, an invoice, flyer, newspaper ad, etc. Do all of these materials look like they came from the same company?

Using your brand image elements effectively is not rocket science, the secret is defining them and then using them consistently.

Take a look at this lawn sign we have just created for Chicago small business, Heinzen Smith Properties

and compare it to their web site

It is quite obvious with just a cursory glance that these two marketing pieces are from the same company, the logo is the same, they share a color palette and both use similar design elements.